Tydore shook his head. "No counterfeit. It will do what I said it would
do. Kill. What more can one ask of a weapon?"
It was Marley's turn to smile. "Nothing. And there is only this one.
And if you were to die...."
Tydore smiled a veiled smile. "It is as the gods of sand and wind
decree."
Marley pointed the weapon at Tydore. He had only to kill the old
Martian and return to his ship. The mission was over. Completed. He was
done with Mars and with Tydore and his subtle scorn.
He cradled the weapon lovingly, laying his cheek to the carven stock.
Old Tydore had built well. There was perfect balance in the feel of
it. His finger curled around the trigger and he sighted carefully down
the long barrel at the robed figure of the Martian. Tydore was smiling
in the face of death, and Marley wanted to laugh out loud. This is the
way the world ends, he was thinking. Not with a bang but a whimper. He
squeezed the trigger....
The universe exploded in Marley's face. There was a streak of searing
pain that carried away half his face, and as he fell he could hear a
strange sound. For the first time, Tydore was laughing aloud. It was a
hideous sound. A voice for the torment and hatred of a race that had
lived too long, planned too much. Marley felt the tower pinwheel around
him, the flagstones leapt up to meet him, greeting the searing agony of
his face with the soundless laughter of a million intricate patterns of
lonely death. And blackness welled up out of the stones to engulf him,
but not before he knew--
Tydore had made the weapon with the muzzle resembling the stock. It was
as simple as that.